Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns a medical imaging apparatus having a data acquisition scanner with a patient receiving zone at least partially enclosed by the scanner, and at least one positional data acquisition unit equipped with a camera.
Description of the Prior Art
An acquisition unit is required in order to acquire positional data of a patient prior to and/or during a medical imaging examination by operation of a medical imaging apparatus, for example a magnetic resonance apparatus. Typically, acquisition units of this type have a camera. However, conventional cameras image only a limited area at a high resolution, or a large area at a low resolution.
In known medical imaging systems, a number of acquisition units equipped with a number of cameras are required in order to obtain both positional data of a limited area at a high resolution and positional data of a large area at a low resolution. However, systems of this type require a particularly large amount of installation space, which is disadvantageous particularly when such a system is used inside a patient receiving zone of a magnetic resonance apparatus, and can lead to restrictions in terms of space available for the patient.